THAT Giants-Packers will begin shortly after 6:30 p.m. – on Sundays, primetime ratings begin at 7 p.m. – tells us all we have to know about what the NFL has become. There’s no easier way to eliminate those stubborn greed stains than by wiping them away with TV money.

The NFC Championship, outdoors in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Jan. 20, will be a night game. The specialty of the institution has become prostitution.

In a season marked by the greed-driven and predictable embarrassment of the NFL Network’s failure to be widely cleared and fully exploited, yet to have it recognized for what it was intended to be – another money-grab made of artificial additives – the NFL continues to reveal itself as growing sicker by the dollar.

And I’m as sick of writing it as you are of reading it, but the business of modern sports remains predicated on doing what once, as a matter of common sense and common decency, would have been out of the question. And more times than not, such colossally greed-driven decisions are made on behalf of TV money.

That baseball is now stooped and steeped in total disrepute because it replaced its sense of right from wrong with its unquenchable thirst for money is a lesson that has been ignored by the NFL.

To think that just a few years ago, NFL executives were in the habit of poking private fun at Major League Baseball and the NBA for allowing TV money to dictate the dates and starting times of its playoff and championship games.

No way the NFL would allow any outside entity, at any price, to mess with its game or its devoted patrons.

But here we are. The only thing that’s preventing tonight’s Giants-Packers from being played in daylight, when severe but regularly anticipated weather conditions will not be as severe, is money. The good of the game? You’ve got to be kidding.

*

OK, now that Al Sharpton has found another white sportscaster to publicly condemn and even ruin for a racially insensitive remark – Golf Channel’s Kelly Tilghman – he finally is going to get around to calling out – loudly, clearly and by name – a dozen or more of the nation’s most popular black rappers and comedians for their constant and commercial use of the N-word.

He’s even going to condemn them, again, by name (real and street), for helping return the vilest slur that can be spoken of black people – a word that was nearing extinction – to the mainstream.

“After all,” he will announce, “how can I continue to bash notable white people for what slips from their mouths when notable black people say much worse, over and over, and certainly not by accident?”

Yeah, any day, now he will get around to it. Sharpton’s the media’s foremost go-to-guy on racial equality – fair play – so it’s just a matter of time before he holds that big news conference. Stand by; it’s coming.

While Gimenez, like Tilghman, sounded as if he were trying (too hard) to be cute as opposed to hateful, he apparently has a poor sense of current events as they relate to sportscasters and race.

SNY says Gimenez has been scolded about such cracks, but one shudders to think what would have happened to his career – and who would have led the charge (with the news media’s full cooperation) – had the racial/ethnic components of both reporter and player been different.

*

Did George Mitchell say too much, the first time around? Was he too independent, thus too provocative?

The George Mitchell who first revealed the findings of the Mitchell Report on Dec. 13, reached a strongly stated conclusion. He said, right from the top, that both the owners and players (represented by Bud Selig and Donald Fehr) chose to sacrifice integrity in favor of money.

For a fellow appointed by Selig, such a broad conclusion seemed to confirm that Mitchell had, in fact, investigated and then spoken in an independent fashion.

But Tuesday before Congress, when Mitchell was at least twice provided the opportunity to repeat that conclusion – that charge – he seemed to carefully avoid saying anything at all.

When Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) strongly suggested that MLB was guilty of staging drug-fixed games, thus guilty of a drug conspiracy and fraud-for-profit, Mitchell might have repeated his spoken conclusion from a month earlier, that integrity was abandoned for money.

Instead, he only said his findings can be found in his report.

Next, when Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) pursued a similar line of questioning, Mitchell again demurred, repeating that his answer can be found in his report.

It seemed curious that given the opportunity, Tuesday before Congress, to again get right to the heart of the matter, as he did on Dec. 13 – to repeat that baseball consciously chose to indulge the widespread presence of illegal drugs in order to increase profits – Mitchell clammed up.

*

We’ve been leaked a copy of today’s pregame shows’ “Keys to the Game.”

On offense, the Pats, Chargers, Packers and Giants must protect the quarterback, hold on to the football, avoid third-and-long situations, get an early lead and play well on special teams.

On defense, the teams must pressure the quarterback, force turnovers, create third-and-long situations, prevent the other team from getting an early lead and play well on special teams.

And, most importantly – the key-est key of them all, doubly so in championship games – all teams’ offenses must produce “positive yardage.”